LONDON CITY AND REGENTS PARK

On Saturday club members enjoyed some great racing around the City of London. The courses were designed to make the most of the multi level Barbican area at the start and over 1000 runners had to make fast route choices to reach the controls via tunnels, staircases and skirting prominent landmarks such as the Gherkin tower and St Paul’s Cathedral.

Matt Halliday M20 was 7th out of 191 runners on the 8.9k Mens Long course clocking up 59.04mins and on the Womens Long 7.1k course Sophie Kirk W20 was 9th in 1.03.50 and Jo Halliday W21 13th 1.06.07. Lesley Ross W40 was 8th on the 5.8k course in 58.18mins and Jane Halliday W50 12th in 47.17mins on her course. Alfie Bullus M12 had a great run coming in 11th in 18.24mins on the children’s course.

 On the following day London Orienteering Club organised an Ultra Sprint race around part of Regents Park including two specially constructed mazes adding further challenges. The event comprised three preliminary sprint races followed by a final. Having earned places in the final OD’s Matt Halliday came 2nd in the Mens Open 5 secs behind the winner, Sophie Kirk was 3rd and Jo Halliday 4th in the Womens final and in the Womens Vets Jane Halliday came 2nd and Liz Phillips 4th.

 The Peter Palmer junior national relay championships were also held this weekend and the club fielded 2 teams. The races started before dawn and the juniors wore headlamps on the early legs to aid navigation around the army base at MOD Stafford. The A team of Matt Elkington, Harrison McCartney, Calum Barnetson, Julie Emmerson, Rachel Emmerson, Aimee Morse and Will Gardner were the fastest team but unfortunately the team were disqualified by a mis punch on the final leg. The less experienced B team came in an excellent 11 place out of the 25 teams, team members were Stephen Elkington, Guy Ross, Heather Rogers, Ellie Beach, Hamish Rogers, Sam Hart, Jeremy Knott and Michael Hanson Morris.

13th September 2011